i84 SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN 



2500 (50 X 50) square miles, and contained about 

 3000 agriculturists. He was a stooping elderly man, 

 who once had been of importance. Not unlike Atiok 

 Chiok in appearance, he and his people had also 

 become debased by propinquity to a government 

 station. 



Sultan Yango, of the Banda, lived in a village con- 

 taining about 450 inhabitants. He had only recently 

 arrived from French territory, and every day his 

 numbers were swelling. He was old, with a big head 

 and an ugly negroid face. His gala costume consisted 

 of a flannelette shirt of pinky-red tartan and capacious 

 drawers made of bed-ticking, with a large black and 

 white chess-board pattern on it. 



The country south of Dem Zubeir was finer than 

 that to the north. Huge trees, both in height and 

 girth, were everywhere. The country was undulating, 

 and water in khors plentiful. 



At one village the sid-el-beit (master of the house) 

 brought me some of his asida (porridge) in a bowl. I 

 would neither recommend it nor the vegetable sauce 

 served with it. He showed me the great nets, made 

 of native fibre, with 8-inch meshes, in which game 

 is captured. Almost every group of huts had one 

 or two. The procedure of the chase is as follows. 

 The net being stretched between trees, a huge 

 circle is made, and the hunters endeavour to drive 

 a hartebeest, roan, or even buffalo into the nets. 

 When tangled in them the quarry is despatched with 

 spears. 



We soon found ourselves in the pathless forest — 



